Seen on reddit. Someone asked: "What happens after the welfare cuts? I feel this has not been thought through properly. There are currently over 1.6 million people actively looking for work, and around 736,000 jobs available."
Another redditor responded: "*I work in a job centre.
We are openly told by line managers there is no plan. The reforms will mean many people lose out directly (their PIP is cut), but also indirectly (carers of people with PIP are entitled to an additional rate on UC).
The main things we are being trained for is an increase in 6PP situations (suicidal claimants) and additional training on managing those with severe health conditions whilst on UC.
The Work Capability Assessment system is expected to totally collapse immediately after the reforms are implemented due to demand as people denied PIP scramble to get LCWRA classification.
Even the harshest people on my team see it as a disasterous act of cruelty, as someone put it "saying the quiet part out loud."*
What is the government hoping will happen? There aren't enough jobs already. Do they hope everyone just kills themselves? Or turns to crime like mugging and shoplifting?
No wonder the UK is the second most miserable country on earth: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/latest-updates/uk-is-officially-the-worlds-second-most-miserable-country-these-were-the-happiest-and-unhappiest-countries-of-2023/articleshow/108361220.cms?from=mdr
Look, I get it. I have starved (am doing so now, in fact) and have attempted suicide and been in ICU multiple times, sometimes for weeks.
But putting authority figures (be they NHS doctors or anyone else) in charge of judging who deserves to live and who deserves to die just fast tracks genocide, with "consent" becoming an outcome that is forcibly attained. As a trans woman, I have had multiple psychiatrists tell me to kill myself, and repeatedly lie to other authorities to get permission to forcibly drug me with drugs that left me unable to feed or clothe myself, and those are the exact same people who would be in charge of deciding to kill me if medical authorities were ever given permission to kill off people for being disabled, mentally ill, or whatever else.
Giving the same people who decide my quality of life the power to then decide if I should die outright because my quality of life is too low (when they made it that low intentionally) is not freedom, it is truly incredible and systematic abuse.
The point is we are already being systematically abused. The disabled are already being murdered via starvation etc. It's a genocide already and it's not going to stop. So I'd rather it was made quicker and painless.
You being trans, presumably would not appreciate being told that you shouldn't be allowed to choose to have a gender reassignment because society thinks being trans is a mental illness and wants to save you from yourself. Yet that's exactly what you're supporting by being against assisted suicide. That people who want to access this service - for whatever reason, whether they're dying slowly, disabled, in chronic pain, or being completely neglected by society - should be told suicidality is just a mental illness and they should be saved from themselves by having their freedom of choice taken away.
There's been a lot of stuff in the news over the years with people claiming that some young people are being brainwashed into having gender reassignments and then regretting it, and this has been used as an argument against gender reassignments, or a tightening of access to them. How do you feel about that? Do you think it's fair that a trans person should be denied this service because anti-trans people fearmonger this way, and convince lawmakers that people who consider themselves trans need to be protected from themselves? Because from my point of view, the point of view of someone who wants to be able to access assisted suicide, this is exactly what your anti-assisted suicide argument sounds like. It sounds just like what a detransitioner probably sounds like to you. Fearmongering and trying to take away other people's right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives.
Abortion is another example. People were outraged when some American state made abortion illegal and now women have to travel to other states and spend a huge amount of money to access it, and some have been threatened with punishment for travelling across state lines for abortion. People are up in arms about this, yet this is the exact situation with assisted suicide in countries where it's illegal. A British person who wants assisted suicide must be able to travel to Switzerland, spend up to £20K and their relatives risk years in prison for helping them. What's the difference?
You either support freedom of choice, or an unwanted lifestyle enforced by the state.
No, I'm actually super against the medicalisation of trans stuff and think blockers and E, T, etc. should all be available OTC at pharmacies. I'd make a similar argument about barbiturates and DNRs if I was in the mood to talk about an actual right to end one's own life, because giving authority figures some say in the matter is just going to make things worse in exciting new ways.
So.... you want to make access to trans medications easier then, not harder. And think people should be able to pick up DIY suicide kits at pharmacies?
It's a less problematic solution than "assisted suicide" where professionals are necessarily allowed to suggest it to people and generally facilitate it because it's part of their job. I'd say encouraging suicide in any way should be illegal, if someone dies from a DIY kit someone else bought then it should be treated and charged as murder, but if someone independently decides to die and acquires the method themselves then that's totally within their rights to do.
There is no need for assisted suicide to be suggested to people just because it becomes legal. It could quite easily be run dignitas style where people seek it out for themselves. By your logic abortion should be illegal and people should have to perform DIY abortions because if it's medicalised there's a danger a doctor might suggest it to a patient. But there is no point going on with this, we aren't going to agree.
Drawing a parallel between suicide and abortion is like drawing a parallel between murder and a haircut.
But if you don't want to talk about it I guess that's fine.
Suicide is not murder, except in your opinion. You realise there are many people who consider abortion murder? And it's after midnight, some of us need to sleep.
Suicide and murder both end in someone dying, abortion and a haircut both end in some excess unwanted tissue getting binned.
Once again your opinion. Some people consider that abortion ends in someone dying. Honestly, you sound like a hypocrite and I'm tired so goodnight.
And some people consider that killing a Palestinian isn't murder because only Israelis are living humans to begin with. I don't care what those people think and have no interest in discussing them as if their perspective means anything.